Inspector Mosley
6 total works
Strange things are happening in the remote village of Hadley Dale. Without warning, a TV crew invades the district to shoot a commercial. Without reason, tales of extra-terrestrial sightings spring up. And without a clue, Matthew Longden's robust "housekeeper" friend disappears - in the same way his wife did five years ago.
Assigned to find the missing woman, the unpredictable Mosley bicycles through the Lancashire countryside. Side-tracked by TV mischief-makers, cricket matches, and rumours of a buried body. Mosley is stopped in his leisurely tracks by a shocking death. By prying information from the locals and raising hackles at headquarters, deceptively brilliant Mosley soon unravels an intricate tapestry of delusions, disappearances, and death to neatly tie up a most malicious murder.
`Here is the eagerly awaited sequel to Murder, Mr Mosley, the kind of solid, sophisticated and adroitly plotted mystery that British authors do supremely well . . . A rare good time.' Publishers Weekly
`John Greenwood . . . makes Inspector Mosley a very real human being, one with genuine authority despite his rural ways, one who has the instincts of a bulldog and . . . and occasional bite of sardonic humor' New York Times
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.
They’re rustling sheep on Mosley’s patch—the hill country of the Yorkshire-Lancashire border. Young Sergeant Beamish is in love. And Reuben Tunnicliffe of Upper Crudshaw has committed suicide by hanging himself with his braces in the earth closet at the bottom of his yard. Then his eighty-year-old widow Anna reports a theft of 500 pounds . . .
Curious beyond the call of duty, unorthodox in his methods, and unwilling to leave matters in the hands of his nemesis Chief Inspector Marsters, the imperturbable Mosley sets a trap before departing on vacation.
Before matters are sorted out, vicar Wilfred Weskitt is accused of running a brothel, Mosley publishes poetry under the name of local poetess laureate Millicent Millicheap, and the CIA, the KGB and Special Branch are baffled. But once again, Mosley triumphs in a manner that leaves his superiors and neighbours in states varying from bewilderment to near-apoplexy.
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.
After seventeen years, Brenda Thwaites Cryer returns to Parson’s Fold with a shadowy past and the shadowy fortune. Now, she lay dead in Jackman’s Cottage. And the only possible witness—her invalid mother—is missing.
For Inspector Mosley, this case is a radical departure from locating missing turkeys or thwarting orange thieves. But HQ has no one else available – no one, but whiz-kid Sergeant Beamish, whose task it becomes to keep a close eye on unpredictable Mosley. Yet how could Beamish fulfil his duty when Mosley dispatches him on ridiculous research missions from a Yorkshire castle, to a prestigious law firm, to a dentist in Ember Bay – only to discover Mosley poking about on the scene when he arrives? For Beamish, it is infuriating – until these haphazard leads net important clues that help quietly ingenious Mosley bag his very first killer.
‘Mosley and Beamish are an appealing odd couple as cops, both likeable human beings. If this is the beginning of a new series, may there be more!’ Washington Post
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.
Inspector Mosley’s superiors don’t usually court his company: he’s thought to be slow and stupid, and he certainly has a gift for infuriating those in authority over him. But when a gallows in good working order is offered for sale in the Hemp Valley Advertiser, and a woman vanishes in suspicious circumstances from the village of Hempshaw End, it’s even more infuriating that Mosley can’t be found anywhere. For only his intimate knowledge of the district – the hill country of the Yorkshire-Lancashire border – has a chance of making sense of the affair.
John Greenwood’s third Mosley book is as deft, witty and as unmistakably Northern as the first two.
‘Witty, literate and nicely observed, with good round characters, shrewd detection and not a little suspense . . . a perfect example of the old English craft of country comedy. All the proper pleasures of detective fiction are here, plus the transforming bonus of genuine laughter.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘In his quiet, low-key, craggily humorous fashion, Mosley should go far.’ The Times
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.
Ever since television’s “Antiques Road Show” passed by that way, the inhabitants of Mr Mosley’s patch—the hill country of the Yorkshire-Lancashire border—have become avid collectors of bric-a-brac. And Dickie Holgate, with a junk-cum-antique stall in the market-place of the little town of Bagshawe Broome, is doing very well as a result. That is, until Mosley spots one or two items of doubtful provenance among the chromium-plated teapots and bone-handled cutlery.
Reducing his superiors—especially Detective-Superintendent Tom Grimshaw—to a state of nervous prostration, and accompanied by an admiring, if uncomprehending, Sergeant Beamish, Mosley, in his black homburg and overcoat, strolls through scenes of ever-increasing comic confusion to a final satisfying denouement.
What, Me, Mr Mosley? is the sixth, and sadly, the last, of John Greenwood’s Inspector Mosley novels. In its humour, wit, and nicely judged North-of-England atmosphere, this is a fitting and worthy conclusion to the series.
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.
“Witchcraft,” the Assistant Chief Constable said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A witches’ coven in Marldale.”
The tiny village of Upper Marldale is being overwhelmed—by a mischievous coven of witches. Neither believers nor non-believers can explain why the church clock winds itself up without assistance, why a row of winter cabbages is suddenly struck down in the night, or why not one cat in the village will venture forth after dusk. Marldale is the territory of the deceptively brilliant Inspector Jack Mosley, and his exasperated superiors wish he would get on with solving these nagging little incidents. But nagging soon becomes nightmarish when a sculptor is found hanging from her ceiling beam. A whiff of local corruption tickles Mosley’s nose, and he and his sidekick set off into the bracing northern air to seek the reasons and parties behind both the supernatural and the homicidal.
John Greenwood is the pseudonym of John Buxton Hilton, writer of both the Inspector Simon Kenworthy and Inspector Thomas Brunt series.